Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

Popular blogger Cal Newport reveals the new key to achieving success and true meaning in professional life: the ability to master distraction. Many modern knowledge workers now spend most of their brain power battling distraction and interruption, whether because of the incessant pinging of devices, noisy open-plan offices or the difficulty of deciding what deserves their attention the most. When Cal Newport coined the term deep work on his popular blog, Study Hacks, in 2012, he found the concept quickly hit a nerve.

The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life

Based on a legendary course Roth has taught at Stanford University for several decades, The Achievement Habit employs the remarkable insights that stem from design thinking to help us realize the power we all have within to change our lives for the better. By ridding ourselves of issues that stand in the way of reaching our full potential, we gain the confidence finally to do things we've always wanted to do.

If I Could Tell You Just One Thing: Encounters with Remarkable People and Their Most Valuable Advice

Richard Reed built Innocent Drinks from a smoothie stall on a street corner to one of the biggest brands in Britain. He credits his success to four brilliant pieces of advice, each given to him just when he needed them most. Ever since, it has been Richard's habit, whenever he meets somebody he admires, to ask them for their best piece of advice. If they could tell him just one thing, what would it be? Richard has collected pearls of wisdom from some of the most remarkable, inspiring and game-changing people in the world.

Originals: How Non-Conformists Change the World

The New York Times best-selling author examines how people can drive creative, moral and organisational progress - and how leaders can encourage originality in their organisations. How can we originate new ideas, policies and practices without risking it all? Adam Grant shows how to improve the world by championing novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battling conformity and bucking outdated traditions.

Think Simple: How Smart Leaders Defeat Complexity

In Think Simple, Apple insider and New York Times best-selling author Ken Segall gives you the tools to Apple's success - and shows you how to use them. It's all about simplicity. Whether you're in a multinational corporation or a lean start-up, this guide will teach you how to crush complexity and focus on what matters: how to perform better, faster and more efficiently.

So Good They Can't Ignore You

Cal Newport's clearly written manifesto flies in the face of conventional wisdom by suggesting that it should be a person's talent and skill - and not necessarily their passion - that determines their career path. Newport, who graduated from Dartmouth College (Phi Beta Kappa) and earned a PhD from MIT, contends that trying to find what drives us, instead of focusing on areas in which we naturally excel, is ultimately harmful and frustrating to job seekers.

Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want to Be

In business, the right behaviors matter. But getting it right is tricky. Even when we acknowledge the need to change what we do and how we do it, life has a habit of getting in the way, upsetting even the best-laid plans. And just how do we manage those situations that can provoke even the most rational among us into behaving in ways we would rather forget?

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't

Imagine a world where almost everyone wakes up inspired to go to work. This is not a crazy, idealised notion. In many successful organisations, great leaders are creating environments in which teams trust each other so deeply that they would put their lives on the line for each other. Yet other teams, no matter what incentives are offered, are doomed to infighting, fragmentation and failure. Why? Today's workplaces tend to be full of cynicism, paranoia and self-interest.

Sprint: How to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days

Entrepreneurs and leaders face big questions every day. How should you be focusing your efforts? What will your idea look like in real life? How do you start? How many meetings and discussions does it take before you can be sure you've got the right solution? Now there's a surefire way to answer these important questions: the sprint.

The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks Than Others Do in 12 Months

Most organizations and individuals work in the context of annual goals and plans; a 12-month execution cycle. Instead, The 12 Week Year avoids the pitfalls and low productivity of annualized thinking. This book redefines your "year" to be 12 weeks long. In 12 weeks, there just isn't enough time to get complacent, and urgency increases and intensifies. The 12 Week Year creates focus and clarity on what matters most and a sense of urgency to do it now.

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Why do naturally talented people frequently fail to reach their potential while other far less gifted individuals go on to achieve amazing things? The secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a passionate persistence. In other words, grit. MacArthur Genius Award-winning psychologist Angela Duckworth shares fascinating new revelations about who succeeds in life and why.

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

Anders Ericsson has spent 30 years studying the special ones - the geniuses, sports stars and musical prodigies. And his remarkable finding, revealed in Peak, is that their special abilities are acquired through training. The innate 'gift' of talent is a myth. Exceptional individuals are born with just one unique ability, shared by us all - the ability to develop our brains and bodies through our own efforts.

Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All

Ten years after the worldwide best seller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns with another ground-breaking work, this time to ask: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research, buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins and his colleague, Morten Hansen, enumerate the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times.

The Storyteller's Secret: How TED Speakers and Inspirational Leaders Turn Their Passion into Performance

How did an American immigrant without a college education go from Venice Beach T-shirt vendor to television's most successful producer? How did a timid pastor's son surmount a paralysing fear of public speaking to sell out Yankee Stadium - twice? How did the city of Tokyo create a PowerPoint stunning enough to win them the chance to host the Olympics? They told brilliant stories.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Have you ever found yourself struggling with information overload? Have you ever felt both overworked and underutilised? Do you ever feel busy but not productive? If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is to become an essentialist. In Essentialism, Greg McKeown, CEO of a leadership and strategy agency in Silicon Valley who has run courses at Apple, Google and Facebook, shows you how to achieve what he calls the disciplined pursuit of less.

Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive

In the international best seller The Power of Habit, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Duhigg explained why we do what we do. In Smarter Faster Better, he applies the same relentless curiosity, rigorous reporting and rich storytelling to explain how we can get better at the things we do. The result is a groundbreaking exploration of the science of productivity.

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

All our lives are constrained by limited space and time, limits that give rise to a particular set of problems. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of new activities and familiar favorites is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not: computers, too, face the same constraints, so computer scientists have been grappling with their version of such problems for decades.

Outsmart Yourself: Brain-Based Strategies to a Better You

The brain is an astounding organ, and today neuroscientists have more insights than ever about how it works - as well as strategies for helping us live better every day. These 24 practical lectures give you a wealth of useful strategies for improving your well-being. By presenting evidence-based "hacks" for your brain, Professor Vishton empowers you to take charge of your life and perform better all around.

Key Person of Influence: The Five-Step Method to Become One of the Most Highly Valued and Highly Paid People in Your Industry

Every industry revolves around Key People of Influence. Their names come up in conversation. They attract opportunities. They earn more money. Many people think it takes decades of hard work, academic qualifications and a generous measure of good luck to become a Key Person of Influence. This audiobook shows you that there is a five-step strategy for fast-tracking your way to the inner circle of the industry you love. Your ability to succeed depends on your ability to influence. Start now by listening to this audiobook.

Shane Lukas says:"A must hear/read book in order to survive and thrive in the 21st century"

Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want

Each of us has but one life to live on this earth. What we do with it is our choice. Are we drifting through it as spectators, reacting to our circumstances when necessary and wondering just how we got to this point anyway? Or are we directing it, maximizing the joy and potential of every day, living with a purpose or mission in mind? Too many of us are doing the former - and our lives are slipping away one day at a time. But what if we treated life like the gift that it is? What if we lived each day as though it was part of a bigger picture, a plan?

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

The path to your professional success starts with a critical look in the mirror. If you listen to nothing else on managing yourself, you should at least hear these 10 articles (plus the bonus article "How Will You Measure Your Life?" by Clayton M. Christensen). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles to select the most important ones to help you maximize yourself.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

David Allen reads an all-new edition of his popular self-help classic for managing work-life balance in the 21st century - now updated for the new challenges facing individuals and organizations in today's rapidly changing world. Since it was first published more than 15 years ago, David Allen's Getting Things Done has become one of the most influential business books of its era and the ultimate book on personal organization.

C says:"Good overview of methodology but only in addition to the book"

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph

We are stuck, stymied, frustrated. But it needn't be this way. There is a formula for success that's been followed by the icons of history - from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs - a formula that let them turn obstacles into opportunities. Faced with impossible situations, they found the astounding triumphs we all seek.

Ego Is the Enemy

"While the history books are filled with tales of obsessive visionary geniuses who remade the world in their images with sheer, almost irrational force, I've found that history is also made by individuals who fought their egos at every turn, who eschewed the spotlight, and who put their higher goals above their desire for recognition." (From the prologue)

Publisher's Summary

An insightful new work from the multimillion-copy best-selling author Sean Covey and the FranklinCovey organization, based on their work with hundreds of thousands of employees and large companies to unveil the essential disciplines proven to help businesses and individuals realize their most important goals.

A publishing phenomenon, Sean Covey and the FranklinCovey organization have become one of the most respected brands in the highly competitive world of thought leadership in business. In his latest work, Covey lays out an unprecedented plan for goal-realization that will revolutionize the way we approach our dreams.

The 4 Disciplines of Execution provides a simple, proven formula for achieving the goals that every individual or organization needs to reach. From Marriott to the U.S. Navy, Covey and his team have worked with more than 200,000 people in hundreds of organizations to improve performance, identifying and honing four secrets of perfect execution: Focus on the Wildly Important; Act on the Lead Measures; Keep a Compelling Scoreboard; and Create a Cadence of Accountability. By allowing teams to separate those urgent tasks that demand attention merely to keep a company alive - called the "whirlwind" - from new, "wildly important" goals that promise to break new ground, these disciplines empower leaders to accomplish what is by far the most difficult aspect of creating results: executing a strategy that requires a change in behavior. Simply put, this is a work that no business, however small or large, can afford to pass up.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

What the Critics Say

"The 4 Disciplines of Execution offers more than theories for making strategic organizational change. The authors explain not only the 'what' but also 'how' effective execution is achieved. They share numerous examples of companies that have done just that, not once, but over and over again. This is a book that every leader should read!" (Clayton Christensen, Professor, Harvard Business School, and author of The Innovator's Dilemma)

If you follow the 4 disciplines you will get improved results. I have and I did. That said, there is a one-hour introduction book which gets the basics across better than this book does. My view is buy the shorter book and listen to it 5 or more times and you'll get all you need to start using the disciplines in practice.

Don't even think about not getting this book. truly a great operating system for any business .

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Jinean F.

04/08/16

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Performance

Story

"Great Read"

This book is a game changer. As a business leader, this book lays down the laws of implementation. It's a pivot.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Curiousgeorge

16/05/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"Gives a framework that can work!"

What made the experience of listening to The 4 Disciplines of Execution the most enjoyable?

I really liked this book, the authors provide a straight-forward framework to apply at home or at work, but clearly recognise and name the key blocker that fogs everything up. The whirlwind. Nicely written book, logical and clear.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Darwin8u

Mesa, AZ, United States

03/02/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Please Remember To Tip Your Executioner?"

“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”

- Albert Camus

Probably somewhere between 2.5 and 3 stars. First, full disclosure: I went to a private school in Provo with several of Stephen R. Covey's kids. Not Sean Covey. He was older, but one of two of his younger brothers. My wife also worked for the Covey Leadership Center (and later FranklinCovey after the merger) while I was finishing college. I am very familiar with the FranklinCovey business model (could probably vomit the 7-habits on demand) and business strategy approach. In many ways I'm biased by my own agnosticism towards Franklin Covey. I think Stephen R. Covey was brilliant at building a consultant business that structured time-management, strategy, and execution ideas into highly marketable programs (notice I don't say books) that could be sold in several formats and applied in multiple industries. The ideas were common sense, but the packaging and marketing was brilliant. Stephen R. Covey died a couple years ago from a mountain bike accident in Rock Canyon (oh the stories I could regale you with about the dangers of Rock Canyon). Anyway, the Covey mantle has evidently been passed.

This book is the management/leadership book equivalent of the novelization and franchising of a successful movie (see Star Wars, etc). 4DX was developed by FranklinCovey as an addition piece of their large consulting and content-delivery arsenal. IT was almost the reverse process that works with other leadership coaching/books. First you birth the book, than you try to exploit the success of the book into a bunch of CDs, webinars, videos, consultant workshops, certifications, yaddas and yaddas.

Anyway, I think the 4DX approach is just fine (see my agnosticism line above). But like Mark Twain once wrote when reviewing 'The Book of Mormon', "Whenever he [Joseph Smith] found his speech growing too modern—which was about every sentence or two—he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as “exceeding sore,” “and it came to pass,” etc., and made things satisfactory again. “And it came to pass” was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet." The team that wrote the 4 Disciplines of Execution didn't include "and it came to pass" once, but if you removed all the hyping of 4DX, the internal and external reviews of how much it helped "Business A" or "Organization X", all the subtle and not-so-subtle references to 4DX CDs, certifications, consultants, etc., it might not be a book, it might only have been a pamphlet (and you can't sell a pamphlet for $30 to the State of Georgia).

So, why do I give this 3-stars while I gave a recent (and rare) read of a business management book only two-stars (Executive Toughness)? Well, the simple answer is: polish. At least the development team of writers, consultants, VPs, staff, and family at the FranklinCovey Organization know how to write and edit. When I read this I didn't laugh or gag once, and that is (I guess) at least worth one additional star.

15 of 23 people found this review helpful

Frank Rumbauskas

Dallas, TX USA

12/02/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"Great for corporate drones, not entrepreneurs"

Would you try another book from the authors and/or the narrators?

No - it became apparent while listening that this is targeted toward corporate middle-managers and has little relevance for a hard-driving entrepreneur like myself. If you have a large number of employees at a big company and they're not getting the job done, your leadership is at fault and this book *may* help.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The least interesting to me was simply how corporate it all is. And the cutesy "4DX" brand reeks of that.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No.

Any additional comments?

I found this book recommended in a business form but almost immediately realized that this is for managers of good-sized teams in big corporations, not for no-nonsense entrepreneurs like me and others in the same arena. It seems to me like one of those books (and brands) that thrive by giving corporate drones something to talk about and work on, creating an excuse to justify their jobs.

6 of 9 people found this review helpful

Andrew J. Davis

Denver, Co.

10/10/16

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Performance

Story

"Excellent Leadership Book"

Simple, understandable, actionable, and clear. This book takes the complexity of leadership and simplifies it by forcing you to focus on what will bring results. Loved the book.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Stacey

05/12/16

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Performance

Story

"Great book, but not a one time listen"

Lots of great info, but you definitely need to pay attention, rewind, maybe take notes. I will need to re-listen for sure as there is so much information, but it is worth it.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Nina

30/11/16

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Performance

Story

"motivational"

loved it. makes you want to go out and accomplish things with a team. for anyone

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

Ken Halvorson

30/09/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"4dx"

great ideas and examples of wins and losses has good value for those wanting to increase engagement

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

MkkM

30/09/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"Something that can be done."

This is a clear outline that creates executable goals with this I have a plan.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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